Saturday, January 29, 2011

Happy Birthday Paul! My handsome husband is 33!! Paul is the most amazing husband who always puts his family first. He is outnumbered by a houseful of girls and he wouldn't have it any other way. One of his biggest jobs in our house is fixing all the "broken" toys. He fixes princess shoes, jewelry, and tiaras. He spends hours eating tasty, fresh from the play kitchen dinners.

Friday, January 21, 2011

I knew it would happen. I just didn't realize that it would happen so early. Grace already thinks I am a bit crazy and that I surely don't always know what I am talking about.

All three girls are playing happily in the dining room talking crazy gibberish that I tend to ignore. When I ask them what they are doing and tell them to start picking up their toys. I got some crazy response about how they are watching the lanterns. All of them (all their barbies and babies and Grace & Lydia too) are lying down watching the ceiling.

Then Grace reminds Lydia not to touch "earth." So I kindly remind Grace that we live on Earth. Grace looks doubtful. Then she turns to Lydia and says, "our real mom with dark hair doesn't know a lot of things. The real Earth is just blue and green and looks like a beach ball. We do NOT live on Earth."

Don't all these Barbies look happy looking at the lanterns?My little know-it-alls staring at the ceiling...

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Grace and Lydia have lots of clothes, lots of shoes and certainly plenty of outerwear. But apparently nothing they have is as cool as it is to dress up as Mom and Dad. So they take our clothes and add it to their already large wardrobes.

So not only do they dress the roles of mom and dad, but then they act it out too. They pretend to be madly in love and talk about going on dates with each other.She does look darn cute though.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Most days Grace and Lydia can spend hours making up games and entertaining each other. They laugh at everything,,, and nothing at all. It seems like every time we get in the van to drive somewhere they play a new game. Sometimes it's I Spy, other times the count cars, or look for the best houses along the way.

At home they chase each other around the house, they play mommy, they play Barbies, and cook together.

Occasionally the fight. They kick, hit and pull each others hair.

But for the most part they love each other's company. Today as we were getting ready for the day, they wanted to be twins, so they wore matching tights, similar dresses and matching boots. Still convinced that their efforts weren't great enough, Grace figured that they needed to be "real" twins like their friends Kylie & Ella. Unfortunately, I had to break it to her that I couldn't turn Lydia 4 and make them real twins.

Sunday, January 16, 2011

My littlest peanut has been busy in the past couple weeks. Between Christmas and New Year's she started walking. She still hasn't convinced herself that walking is always the fastest method of movement; so, she hasn't dropped crawling altogether yet.

Check out this beautiful new smile. In the past three weeks, Ella nearly tripled the number of teeth in her mouth. Yes, she has been a drooling, chewing, sometimes less than 100% happy for a couple of those days. It didn't help that she also has a cold on top of teething. Thankfully no ear infections for over a month.

She's quickly claimed a new tooth brush for those new pearly whites. She loves brushing her teeth while she is teething. The toothbrush is easy to get back by those one year molars and gnaw on for comfort.Ella is still a petite little baby. She finally made it to 20 pounds (plus an couple ounces) putting her in the 10th percentile for weight. She's 30.5 inches tall putting her in the 50th percentile for height.

Her favorite toy is her glowworm that she got from St. Nick in December. She considers it her baby and gives it lots of hugs and kisses. Ella has also been watching her sister, Lydia a little too often because she is quite the climber. Ella likes to climb and stand on everything: shopping carts, rocking chairs, the play kitchen, furniture...

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

I knew the time would come when the girls would want lots of Barbies. I held off as long as possible in getting them Barbies since I did not want to be on the lookout for little shoes, tiaras, necklaces and other little Barbie accessories.

But, the time has come. Barbies invaded our sweet suburban home over the Christmas week. Up until this Christmas, the only Barbies that we had were the ones that the girls had inherited from their cousin, Haley.

The Barbies are here! And they are happily residing in the new house and their new dream vacation home.

My newest little residents watching some TV. Grace insists that Rapunzel likes to hang from the window. (I certainly figured out why the new Rapunzel movie is named Tangled. Luckily for Rapunzel, my friend Norma came and gave her a new princess hairdo. Have I mentioned that Grace LOVES all her new Barbies!!! Thank you to all who gave the girls Barbies for Christmas. They are in heaven! And they have been great about not playing with any little pieces while Ella is awake.

Sunday, January 2, 2011

I am terrible at planning dinners in advance. Usually around 3 pm each afternoon I realize that I have no idea what I am going to make for dinner. Once I finally get an idea of what to cook, I realize that I don't usually have the ingredients to make the chosen dinner. I could wake up the sleeping baby (sometimes baby& toddler), drag the troops to the grocery store to get the needed supplies, then get home and make dinner OR I could make frozen pizza or have Paul pick up dinner (and then put it our own plates so it qualifies as dinner at home).

Just recently, I found an amazing website that has menus planned. LOTS of menus. No crazy menus that my kids would never touch. Not super complex dinners that would spend hours on every day. Not crazy meals that call for ingredients that I have never knew existed. But easy dinners!! Check it out here.

So I am going to try to make dinners this year. Better than PB&J dinners.

Maybe next year I will aim to make dinners and lunches. Maybe...

(In full disclosure, we aren't starting the real too well. I had plans for dinner yesterday & today, but yesterday we went to a friend's for the Badger game. Today we are having people over for the Packer game, so will have to postpone the planned dinner again). Maybe it will just be a weekday resolution...

Saturday, January 1, 2011

Happy New Year!! We are all dressed in our cutest red and white clothes and ready to root for a Wisconsin Badger win in the Rose Bowl. Since gearing up for a Badger game is all our family can handle today, we are going to worry about the New Year's Resolutions tomorrow.

In other notes, all the Christmas decor is put away for another year. I am always so excited to bust out the holiday decor in November, but I am equally excited to put it all away, vacuum the needles and start the year with a less cluttered house for the new year.

On Monday, we'll get back into our regular routine. Paul has been off of work since he middle of December, so our schedules have been much more flexible than normal. Having a extra person home most of the time makes managing three young girls so much easier than when Paul works all week.